Charles Towne Landing State Park Part 1

Hey there! We are back! Thank you for your patience as we finish up our state park adventure. Today we visit Charles Towne Landing State Park! This historic park has a lot to take in and explore - they even have a small zoo. You can spend almost a whole day at this park, this is a must visit if you're a history buff. Due to the size and scope of the park we're going to split this into two posts. The park and trails offer a lot of hiking/biking, we hiked over 3 miles and didn't make it to all the areas of the park!

The visitors center is just a short walk from the parking lot, there are interpretive signs like this all over the park. It is really nice and offers a view over the pond and a small museum. 



Setting out from the visitors center you have a couple of trail choices. We took the history/animal forest trail, this trail takes you around most of the park and gives you the option of seeing the small zoo.



The zoo branches off to the left from this trail, just follow the signs if you want to see it. We'll cover more from the zoo in our next blog post so stay tuned! Continuing on past where the zoo branches off you'll come to a field with an interesting past! There are several historical markers here that are very informative. There is also a large picnic area with a lot of picnic tables nearby.



This statue is just past the field and honors an Indian Tribe that helped the early settlers, there's also an area where they've unearthed an old home-site, under the glass is an old bathtub!



Right past the old home-site is the old fort, you can take the path around to the side or straight through the fort. We ended up going in a loop to see both trails. If you're wanting to go on just one trail, take the side route, you'll see more - including this small cannon.




Near the end of the fort is an area where they've setup the larger canons, this area has important historical significance, as you'll read on the signs. They have live canon firings so check the State Park website for dates and times, these are always great!



There are a few authentic structures in the fort as well, including this old slave house.


One of the main attractions is the replica ship they have, it's right past the old fort. You can board the ship and experience what it was like to be a sailor hundreds of years ago!! We couldn't go below deck due to the rain this day, but if you make it on a sunny day you can venture below! Watch out for pirates!





They also have the "skeleton" of an old ship here and information on how they were built. There's a lot of history and information here to take in!



Stay tuned as our next blog post will cover the rest of this great park and the zoo! The history and beauty of this park make it a must visit, make sure you have a lot of time to visit and enjoy the whole park. The programs are great and hopefully we'll be able to come back and visit during a live dig or canon demonstration. This park has plenty of photo opportunities so bring your camera! As always I ended up with way more pictures than room so be sure to scroll down past this to see a few more pictures. Be sure to read the rest of this blog to see our other state park adventures and then visit our website to see the pictures that didn't make it in the blog and in higher (Blog pics are reduced quality to help with space/load times) resolution. Fine art prints are available for purchase at my site also. Be sure to connect with us on social media! All this can be found at our site: http://www.centerlightstudios.com.